Beta Testing for XDA Forum Redesign is Now Open!

Over the past two weeks, some of you have discovered the new XDA 2010 “style” for the forums, which is the new visual style we’ve been working on for XDA for almost six months. We appreciate all the feedback so far. There are still bugs to be worked out, but we think it’s time to more broadly introduce it to the community. We spent COUNTLESS hours on this–much of that volunteer time from certain members of the community and the fantastic XDA moderators. Thank you so much to everyone who helped (or who offered to)! The new visual style for the forum is clean, modern, and reminiscent of the XDA “feel” that you’re all so used to. We hope you like it.

Eventually this style will be the new default. While we’re in beta mode, you can switch to it with this link. or by using the dropdown menu at the very bottom of the page (“XDA 2010 BETA”).

The style selection is saved with a cookie– so, for now, clearing them (or just clicking to log out) will bring you back to the good old lemon-colored XDA. If not, click here to force it back.

Some very IMPORTANT notes:

– We intend to continue to support the old style, so if you don’t like this one, don’t worry, you can switch back!

– The new style works much better on the most recent versions of all the popular browsers. It’s unusable on IE6 and will have some bugs on IE7.

– There are two new ad units. Our goal in the redesign was to not annoy members with new ads but to annoy guests (meaning, unregistered users) juuuust a little bit (so we can continue to exist/pay mounting server bills!). There is a new ad within the first post in every thread. Members will NOT see this (if you’re not a member, just register for free). There is a new square ad on the forum home page. Members can avoid this one too by switching to our new “compact mode.”

– By popular demand, there is a new “compact” view of our forum home page in the new style which is faster loading and easier to navigate. If you’re using a mobile browser, we’ve added code to automatically switch to the compact view. You can switch to it by clicking on the link in the breadcrumb bar at the top. This selection will be saved with a cookie.

– We are doing our best to optimize the speed of the new style. Some people love it, others are finding it a bit slow.

Here is a new thread to submit bugs found in the new style. There is a known bug list in the first post (which we will keep updated). It would be very helpful if you check that list before submitting.

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